Ottawa needs all the help it can get on corporate and trade policy, so we can only hope that the business panel announced Tuesday by Trade Minister Ed Fast is up to the challenge. Mr. Fast said the Global Commerce Strategy (GCS) Advisory Panel — including former politicians Perrin Beatty of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and John Manley of the Council of Chief Executives — will act as a “sounding board” and “provide advice with a view to ensuring that the next phase of the GCS maximizes economic opportunities for Canadian workers and businesses.”

OK, panel, let’s get started with a case study on what Canada’s global commerce strategy should not become: frozen pizza.

Few Canadians would think of frozen pizza as a national-champion industry or the focus of a global commercial strategy. But in Ottawa, where Ontario MP Gary Goodyear is Cabinet minister for the industrial pork barrel known as the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario, $12-million is going to help a German food giant, Dr. Oetker GmbH, build a frozen-pizza plant to supply the North American market with the company’s Ristorante and Casa de Mama products. Read more

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